The confederate flags surrounding the memorial were removed, without notice, by Governor Robert Bentley, on June 24, 2015.
Bentley resigns on 4-10-17: NY Times story is HERE. 
With all of this military war talk, there's also talk of renewing a military draft. My nominee for the first draftee?
Barron.
I have no idea what his draft classification is. Back in my draft era I was "1A" (Available for military service.) I have no idea if there is a "bone spur" classification.
Sports has it's own language. In English the word commit is defined this way:
To commit oneself to a course of action, a principle, or a relationship. This means making a promise or declaration to do something or to be involved in something, often with the expectation of following through
But in sports "commit" basically means nothing. Even though we refer to an athlete as being a "commit" and "committing" to a team, they frequently do NOT follow through.
From The Washington Post:
People in the community who knew the Boelters have been struggling to reconcile the neighbor they knew with the man authorities say tried to rampage and kill Minnesota politicians. He declared himself a born-again Christian at age 17, and based on his recent online activity, an expert said his views appeared to align with those of the political “far right” of American Christianity.
Time is a liar.
It calculates my age as 75.
(but how can that be? I was just 45 a few years ago!)
“I didn’t try to lay down with a child or a kid or a man or a boy, so I don’t apologize for being a man,” he (Kamau Afrika) said.
(AL.COM Story HERE)
Really? You think someone will recognize him from this photo? I doubt his own mother would!
I'm surprised tRump hasn't adopted the same title as used in this headline:
The extraordinary image was captured by ESA’s Flyeye telescope in May 2025 during its first light campaign. This was not just a technical test; it became a powerful demonstration of the telescope’s capabilities.
The image was produced from 16 simultaneous 30-second exposures, each corresponding to one segment of the instrument’s view. What’s remarkable is that this relatively brief imaging session managed to capture the entire span of Andromeda in a single frame.
“For a dedicated astronomical telescope such as the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, viewing the whole Andromeda Galaxy requires stitching together hundreds of individual observations. This Hubble image of Andromeda, for example, took over 10 years and 600 snapshots to make,” noted ESA.
SOURCE: https://www.earth.com/image/andromeda-one-trillion-stars-in-a-single-frame/
From a N.Y. Times story about something that gives me mixed feelings: Groups who reenact scenes from The Vietnam War.
"This small group of young, conservative men was dedicated to recreating key U.S. military operations and battles from the war in Vietnam on one member’s 100-acre wooded property. Among them were a product manager at Thomson Financial, a former National Guard driver, a mortician and a carpenter. Too young to have served in the conflict, none of these men had ever experienced real combat. Yet they were obsessively committed to the authenticity of their “impressions” — meticulous in their attention to equipment, clothing, food and supplies, whether portraying the Vietcong, the North Vietnamese Army or American soldiers. Participation was by invitation only."
Here is the full NY Times story.
Using service data from more than 300 branches nationwide, Terminix has identified the top 50 U.S. cities with the highest number of bed bug control services. We spoke with Eric Braun, a Technical Service Manager at Terminix, who offered insights into the growing demand for bed bug control. Braun shared, "We have seen a consistent increase in bed bug control service performed since the ‘new normal’ post-COVID-19 pandemic."
Philadelphia takes the top spot for the second year in a row, while New York and Cleveland—Akron both climb higher into the top five, reflecting continued struggles with these persistent pests. When looking at which states appear the most, Ohio, Texas, Florida, California, and Pennsylvania dominate, suggesting regional trends in infestations are likely tied to climate, housing trends, and travel hubs.
APLS Chairman John Wahl: Fairhope Library Must Fully Comply
with State Code for Funding to Be Restored
MONTGOMERY, AL — Alabama Public Library Service (APLS) Chairman John Wahl issued the following statement in response to the Fairhope Library Board’s decision last night to retain the majority of books challenged by parents for sexually explicit content in the library’s youth sections. The APLS Board will formally review Fairhope’s decisions at its upcoming July meeting, and state funding will only be restored if all books containing sexually explicit content—as defined by the APLS Board—have been relocated out of youth sections.
From The NY Times:
"The MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, who spread baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, defamed a former employee of Dominion Voting Systems, a federal jury in Denver found on Monday.
The jury awarded $2.3 million in damages to the former employee, Eric Coomer, after a two-week trial, according to one of his lawyers, David Beller."
Full story is HERE.
MINNEAPOLIS — Authorities in Minnesota said Monday that the man arrested in a Saturday attack that killed one state lawmaker and left another wounded had a "hit list" of 45 elected officials — all Democrats.
Mickey Welsh / Advertiser
(Alas: Unfortunately the actual bus in which Rosa Parks was arrested was located and restored by a Detroit group. It is now a major feature of a museum there.)
Museums often showcase artifacts that represent
significant technological advances as symbols of our scientific
progress. Cultural innovation, however, is more difficult to convey. In
our quest to spotlight social change, curators at The Henry Ford search
for objects that embody some of America’s most compelling cultural
movements.
On December 1, 1955, African-American seamstress Rosa Parks was arrested
for failing to give up her seat on a Montgomery city bus to a white
man, breaking existing segregation laws. Many believe this act sparked
the Civil Rights movement. When the opportunity arose, our staff
recognized that the Rosa Parks bus would be an extraordinary addition to
the museum—though it would be a long journey to acquire and restore it.
The bus identification number was not recorded in any official documents when Rosa Parks was arrested, so years later, many museums and organizations were searching for the bus, but no one was quite sure which bus it was. When bus #2857 was retired in the early 1970s, Roy H. Summerford of Montgomery bought it. At the time, company employees told him that it was the Rosa Parks bus. Summerford and his descendants kept the bus in a field and used it to store lumber and tools. When Summerford passed away, the bus became the property of his daughter and son-in-law, Vivian and Donnie Williams. Although the Williamses knew that this had been identified as the Rosa Parks bus, they had no documents to prove it.
Robert Lifson, President of Mastronet, an Internet auction house, decided he wanted to auction off the bus for Mr. and Mrs. Williams. He began a search for documents authenticating the bus—and he found one.
Minnesota murder suspect Vance Boelter arrested overnight, spotted by drones:
“There’s people, especially in America, they don’t know what sex they are,” he said. “They don’t know their sexual orientation, they’re confused. The enemy has gotten so far into their mind and their soul.”
Boelter quoted in today's NY Times story.
“What really stands out to me now is that the biggest source of chaos is the president himself,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor of political history at Princeton University. “Rather than acting as a force to try to bring some kind of reconciliation, calm and stability, he is fueling the fires.”
Naftali argued that Trump could “end most of the tension single-handedly.”
“But he revels in confrontation, and he is resentful and vengeful in a way he wasn’t quite in 2017,” Naftali said. He added, “No wonder many Americans are on edge when our commander in chief is determined to put tanks on the streets of D.C. and eager to declare emergencies to send masked and armed federal or federalized forces almost everywhere else.”
FULL Story HERE.
In a rare bipartisan gesture, the entire Minnesota congressional delegation issued a joint statement Saturday to decry the shootings of state lawmakers Melissa Hortman and John Hoffman.
“Today we speak with one voice to express our outrage, grief, and condemnation of this horrible attack on public servants. There is no place in our democracy for politically-motivated violence,” the lawmakers said.
The statement was signed by Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith; Democratic Reps. Angie Craig, Kelly Morrison, Betty McCollum and Ilhan Omar; and Republican Reps. Tom Emmer, Brad Finstad, Michelle Fischbach and Pete Stauber.
SOURCE: Washington Post story HERE.
